


grand ferry park

by cmc



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, what a week it's been my friends, yet another fic based on those pics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 19:10:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8257189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmc/pseuds/cmc
Summary: She looks over and he’s leaning on the back of the bench next to hers, and in any other situation she would think he was about to use a bad pick-up line.


  Instead, he says, “Ma’am.” Because of course he does.


  “Is that why we’re in Brooklyn?” she says. “So you and your beard can blend in with the hipsters?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I know there's been probably fifty of these fics already, but WHATEVER here's another. I'm just so happy my babies are back.

They’re sitting on a bench in Grand Ferry Park and Karen really needs to stop kidding herself. 

A week ago a mysterious burner phone appeared in her mailbox at work with a message already in the inbox that read: _it’s me. dig up anything you can on anvil corp. possible illegal arms trading. please._

She didn’t have to guess who _me_ was. If it hadn’t been for the _please_ she would have thrown the phone in the garbage and forgotten about it.

Okay, she wouldn’t have, because Karen’s like a cat with this shit. Leave a drawer open and she has to go investigate, and pretty soon she’s climbing inside and making herself at home and getting fur all over your socks.

She woke up this morning to the sound of the burner phone vibrating on the bedside table because she’s a light sleeper (her brother wasn't; she remembers, vividly, growing up, whenever a particularly bad thunderstorm hit during the night, her eyes would crack open at the first drop of rain, and the next day as they were getting ready for school, she’d ask her brother, exhausted, “did you hear that storm?” and he’d reply, “what storm?”). It’s something that’s come in handy in the past, like when she spent the night in jail and a guard snuck in and tried to choke her, or like when convicted mass-murderers text her at ass o’clock in the morning to say hey.

(The sound of the phone vibrating isn’t quite as loud as thunder, but it’s a near thing.)

She takes the M line over to Brooklyn and does a really good job of acting like a totally normal person. She’s just a normal thirty-something going about her normal thirty-something day, definitely not meeting anyone wanted for thirty-seven counts of murder, nothing to see here.

It’s a bit of a trek to the park, and it takes long enough that with every step she’s working herself up more and more. First, Williamsburg, really? He had to drag her out to hipster central? Second, he thinks he can just… call her up and ask her for favors? After he used her as bait? After he slammed the door in her face? After months of nothing?

Apparently, he can.

She was annoyed when she stepped off the train, and by the time she reaches the East River, she’s pissed. She parks it with a huff on a bench by the water and crosses her arms, waits for his sorry ass to show up.

It doesn’t take long for the ass in question to appear. She looks over and he’s leaning on the back of the bench next to hers, and in any other situation she would think he was about to use a bad pick-up line.

Instead, he says, “Ma’am.” Because of course he does.

“Is that why we’re in Brooklyn?” she says. “So you and your beard can blend in with the hipsters?”

He walks over and sits down next to her, close. She stares straight ahead at the water. “Maybe,” he says.

She reaches in her purse for the paper she brought and shoves it in his general direction. “Everything I could find,” she says as he takes it from her. He doesn’t even look at it, just tucks it in the breast pocket of his jacket.

They’re both silent for a minute. She’s still looking straight ahead, her arms crossed, but she can see him eyeing her in her peripheral vision, like he wants to say something.

“How are you?” he finally asks.

“How _am_ I?” She laughs and it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. “I’m fine, Frank.”

He exhales. Karen thinks he might be nervous, which is ridiculous, one time he screamed his head off in a packed courtroom about how much he loves murder. Nervous isn’t his thing.

“About that night – ” he starts.

“Don’t,” she interrupts.

“Listen – ”

“Nope.” She’s incredibly stubborn when she wants to be, and right now she wants to be.

He’s in her face, now, leaning forward, trying to catch her eye, but she’s not having it. “ _Karen_ ,” he says, softly, and, shit, has he said her name before? She doesn’t think he has. “Have you ever been there? That place you go, right before you pull the trigger? Have you been there?” he asks. He’s almost pleading.

She thinks about an empty warehouse, a gun on the table, the sound of a phone ringing. The cold metal in her hands. Her heart beating in her chest when he told her she wouldn’t do it.

He knows her answer. _Maybe it’s not your first rodeo_.

“You know that I have,” she says. Her eyes flick over to his, once, for a second, and, fuck, she’s already a goner.

He leans forward, his arms on his knees. “Then you know why I had to do it,” he says.

She leans forward, too, copying his pose. “Just because I get it doesn’t mean I think you should have done it. He had the answers that we needed.”

“ _I_ ,” Frank corrects. “That _I_ needed. They’re my questions.”

“That _we_ needed,” Karen repeats, more firmly.

“They’re my family, so I get to decide what happened to him,” he argues, frustrated.

“I know that. But I care about what happened, too. I care about what happens to _you_ ,” her voice is rising, and she’s trying to keep it down, because there’s an old man with a dog and some joggers nearby but whatever.

“ _Why?”_ he blurts, and he looks almost surprised.

“Because you matter to me, you _asshole!_ ” she nearly shouts. It’s loud enough to startle him, and he just stares at her, jarred. She stares back, looking at his face head on for the first time since he appeared, and his skin is free of bruises for once.

Maybe she’s being selfish. Maybe this isn’t her place at all to insert her opinions, because this _is_ about his family and not her. But it’s also about _him_ , and, somehow, that means it’s about her, too.

They’re still staring at each other, and the whole situation catches up with them at the same time, how they’re sitting in a park bench in front of the water looking for all intents and purposes like two people on a date and they’re arguing about whether or not Frank should have murdered some guy like people argue about whose family should they spend Thanksgiving with and she can’t help it, she laughs, because Karen never reacts to anything appropriately.

Frank cracks a smile, too, the one she hasn’t seen since they were back in the diner. She looks away, back out at the water, and they sit in silence again, both of them leaning forward still. Frank moves his leg until his thigh is pressed against hers, just for a second, before he moves it back. Karen mimics the action, just giving his leg a gentle nudge, both of them saying  _hey_ and _I’m here_ and _I’m sorry_ because they can’t say it out loud yet but maybe someday soon they will.

They’re both quiet for a minute before she speaks up. “Don’t do that,” Karen says, quietly.

He blinks. “What am I doing,” he says. “Sitting?” He looks down at himself as if he’s making sure he’s not accidentally doing something morally reprehensible like hanging someone on a meat hook.

“Don’t be dumb, it doesn’t suit you,” she says. “Just don’t keep me in the dark.”

Frank looks over at her, staring in her eyes, and he nods after a moment. “I’m the one who called you,” he says, tapping the pocket holding the information on Anvil with his fingers. “And it looks pretty bright from where I’m sitting, so.” He gestures out to the scenery before them, the water reflecting the sunlight and the blue sky bright in the early morning.

“I have to get to work,” Karen says, gathering up her stuff.

“Me too. Thanks for this,” Frank says, patting his breast pocket.

“It’s not much, but it’s something. I’ll keep looking.”

“Look out for anything on Billy Russo, too,” Frank says as he stands.

“Do I want to know what this is about?” Karen asks, standing as well.

Frank shrugs. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” he says. “Or maybe you’ll let me know when you figure it out.”

Karen is so, so, acutely aware of how Frank is not Matt right now. Maybe Frank is aware, too.

“If you come over to my apartment, am I gonna get shot at this time?” she asks, arching an eyebrow.

“Unlikely, but not impossible.”

“I’ll take those odds.”

Frank nods, staring at her in that way he always does, and she stares back in that way _she_ always does. He doesn’t say goodbye when he turns and walks away, but he doesn’t have to, because it’s not a goodbye, it’s a see you later.

When he’s a few yards away she calls out to him. “Hey,” she says, and he stops and turns around. “Stop by a hardware store before you come over. There are still bullet holes in my walls.”

Frank cracks another smile. “Isn’t that your landlord’s job?”

“My landlord hates me. Can’t imagine why,” she says, dryly.

“Will do, ma’am,” he says, still grinning. He turns around again and leaves, and she watches him go.

She waits until he’s out of sight before making her way to the subway. The walk back is nicer than the walk there, and the only thing that annoys her is when she sees a guy with a handlebar mustache walking around with no shoes on (seriously, Williamsburg?). On the way back to Manhattan, she thinks about whether or not Frank will actually stop by, or whether she’ll end up with nothing but crime reports and empty word documents to keep her company.

Part of her thinks he won’t, the same part that was constantly left in the dark while she was at Nelson and Murdock and is only just now adjusting to the light after she had to burrow her way out by herself. But, as the subway rumbles across the Williamsburg bridge and the sun filters in through the dirty window across the aisle, she allows herself to believe that he will.

**Author's Note:**

> usually I hate fics where no one makes out, so I felt weird writing this. just imagine that there's a very long slow burn after this and then they're eventually making out, okay? also feel free to come shriek with me about these two on [tumblr](http://knightmistys.tumblr.com/).


End file.
